The lockdown meant that Bloody Scotland (an annual crime fiction festival that usually takes place in Sterling) was held online this year.
In an interview with Ian Rankin, Laurence Block revealed that he used Natural Reader, a text-to-speech converter, to check his drafts, and hear how they sounded, often spotting errors. With that recommendation, I thought I would try it out.
There is a free web-based version of Natural Reader which is what I decided to try. For converting text, you can type, cut and paste text, or upload a file. There is also a web reader widget which you can try for free.
There is a range of voices available; as I’m only working with English I tried all the UK and US offerings. I can’t comment on the US voices but all the UK ones are variants on RP, no regional or national accents (but perhaps there is more on offer in the paid-for version). You can also adjust the speed with a fine level of control.
I managed to find a voice I found comfortable to listen to (reminded me of a radio continuity announcer) and I tested it with a book chapter I am reading for my current module. So far so good I think I shall continue to use this as it out performs my existing text-to-speech converter, but I shall continue to try out other options.
